


Missing Piece

by Kass



Series: Stargate Atlantis fanworks [61]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Related, Family Challenge, Flash Fic, M/M, The Last Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-19
Updated: 2008-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:18:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kass/pseuds/Kass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not as if he and Teyla ever breakfasted together, so he doesn't consciously notice her absence. Not in the morning. Besides, he has too much to do. Work to do. Answers to find.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Piece

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Family" challenge at SGA Flashfic. Set immediately before S4 x 20, "The Last Man," and contains spoilers for that episode.  
> Many thanks to Sihaya Black and Lamardeuse for beta.

When his alarm clock goes off Rodney winces and flops over, mashing his  
face into the pillow. Just a little more sleep, God — he's too old for  
this, his body is rebelling. But his mind snaps awake instantly. Soon his  
brain is running at full speed, assessing the work he tried to do last  
night and all the ways in which, it's obvious in the light of day, he took  
completely the wrong tack.

Eventually he drags himself up and stands under the showerhead for a while,  
thanking his own private pantheon that that Ancients built good plumbing  
that will, apparently, last forever. Too little sleep, and the worst part  
is he's not even sure he got anywhere. Maybe Radek will have good ideas  
this morning; he left the lab at a reasonable hour yesterday, which  
probably means he'll be well-rested, the bastard.

Rodney yanks his clothes on, rubs a towel over his hair (it's fine enough  
that it will be dry by the time he gets to work), grabs his laptop and  
heads out the door.

He buzzes the mess hall for exactly ninety-five seconds. That's how long it  
takes to fill his first coffee cup of the day (it's a small mug, but he has  
a big one at the lab, and Radek will no doubt have made the first pot by  
the time he gets there) and ponder the selection of portable pastries. He  
settles on an "apple" danish — the filling is actually a fruit from  
M3B-291 which in its whole form looks like an eggplant and tastes like  
cardboard, but stewed with a little cinnamon and sugar it's surprisingly  
apple-like — and he's off to the lab.

It's not as if he and Teyla ever breakfasted together, so he doesn't  
consciously notice her absence. Not in the morning. Besides, he has too  
much to do. Work to do. Answers to find.

* * *

"No, no, no," Rodney says, walking briskly back out the door. "You're on  
the wrong track, this is completely ridiculous!"

"You are not listening to me," Radek calls, catching up with him without  
trouble. "If we configure like so," his hands are sketching the schematic,  
"I think it is possible —"

"And I think you're dreaming," Rodney says. They skirt a pair of soft  
scientists walking at soft-science pace — ambling, really, which is just a  
sign that their discipline doesn't involve important work! — and remain on  
their beeline for the mess. "Besides, the problem isn't the configuration,  
it's —"

"The damaged three crystals, I know, this is obvious to everyone. Salisbury  
steak, please," Radek says to the woman behind the counter.

"Yes, fine, for me too," Rodney says absently. Something about the way  
Radek said "three crystals" is sparking a realization.

He follows Radek to a big lunch table. No one will sit near them anyway,  
not when they're like this, but Rodney likes to have room to spread out.  
"What if we don't actually need to get all three crystals functioning? What  
if we could tap in to the clean end of the two that sort-of work —"

"Ne, we need more surface area," Radek begins, but then he tilts his head  
and goes silent. "It is possible. Maybe."

"This could be it! The breakthrough!" Rodney's already standing up,  
excitement coursing through him.

"Don't get your hopes up," Radek cautions him, but it's already too late.

"I'm not hungry anymore," Rodney says. "I'm going back — I'll see you  
there," and he's carrying his tray to the busing station, meal almost  
uneaten.

"At least take a sandwich," Radek calls, but Rodney's already out the door.  
In his mind he's already striding into Sam's office, announcing that  
they've solved the puzzle, they know exactly where they need to go, success  
is within their grasp.

* * *

"The bartender on Samos was a talky guy," John said. He and Ronon and  
Rodney were in the briefing room; Sam had called them there as soon as John  
got back. "He said there were rumors of a Wraith who fit Michael's  
description on L2I-6B2, but their gate was down. So I took the jumper to  
the nearest working gate and flew the rest of the way."

"Right, and?" said Rodney, impatient.

"The guy I interrogated there said sure, he'd seen him. Apparently Michael  
demanded supplies from the town, and between his goons with guns and his  
threats," John said, "the people complied."

"I should've killed him when I had the chance," Ronon muttered.

"As he was leaving, somebody finally grew a pair," John said, "and shot at  
him. There was a little skirmish, two townspeople were shot, and as Michael  
and his men disappeared, the DHD was damaged." He dropped a lumpy fabric  
bundle in front of Rodney.

Inside the bandanna were the control crystals, darkened with smoke and in a  
few places melted right through. "Let me take these to my lab," Rodney  
said, pushing back from the briefing table.

"See what you can do," Sam agreed.

After an hour, Radek declared the project too complex to begin at  
dinnertime; they would do better, he said, to sleep on the matter and begin  
in the morning. Rodney glared at him and refused to leave his desk...

Some good that did. Rodney blinks back to awareness and realizes he's  
holding up the dinner line. People are moving around him to get to the  
salad bar, some of them throwing him odd sidelong glances as they pass. He  
knows he should eat; his "lunch" was a powerbar he ate at his desk without  
even noticing the flavor. But he doesn't feel hungry.

They've spent a entire day on the crystals — plus the hours Rodney put in  
late last night — and they still can't get whole gate addresses out of  
them. And now Rodney has to walk over to the dinner table and admit that to  
everyone.

He tried sitting somewhere else, one night right after Michael took Teyla.  
It felt weird and wrong and traitorous. He had to stand up midway through  
the meal and carry his tray over to where he was supposed to be.

Ronon's already there tonight, and Keller. She's a relatively new addition,  
but that's all right; it doesn't feel like an imposition. She's already  
been through enough with them that she's unofficially graduated to  
old-timer, and besides, Rodney's pretty sure there's some kind of unspoken  
rule that anyone who's seriously dating team is kind of...team-in-law.

Radek joins them sometimes too, though at dinner he and Rodney don't argue  
about work. Ostensibly because they don't want to annoy anyone, though it's  
really because it used to bother Teyla. Funny; when she was around, Rodney  
wasn't all that worried about getting on her nerves. Radek's not there  
tonight, though. Maybe because he doesn't want to admit failure, either.

John isn't back from wherever he and Lorne went today. He hasn't called in  
with news, so Rodney's guessing that's not a good sign. It's not a bad one  
either, per se, except in the sense that the longer it takes them to figure  
out where Michael's taken her, the colder the trail grows. All of them are  
counting the weeks until her due date, though no one wants to say that out  
loud.

The thing is, even if there isn't an empty chair at their table, there's an  
empty place.

"We didn't get anywhere," Rodney says flatly. "The crystals are a mess."

There's a long silence.

"So," Jennifer says. "Other than that, how was everybody's day?"

She's trying, but the mood is too heavy for her to lift.

* * *

Rodney grabs a wrapped sandwich to go and heads for John's quarters. If  
John isn't there, he'll override the lock and leave the sandwich on John's  
desk with a note.

But John's home. He answers the door in a pair of sweatpants and a faded  
Stanford t-shirt. His hair is damp and standing up in spikes, which makes  
Rodney smile a little.

"I brought dinner," Rodney says, pushing past John to put the sandwich on  
the desk, like he'd been planning.

"Thanks. I had an MRE in the jumper."

John doesn't like them half as much as Rodney does — something about  
actually being military, Rodney guesses — so he must have been really  
hungry.

"Long day?" Rodney asks, sitting down on one of the chairs, making himself  
at home. If John doesn't want him there, he'll say so.

But John sits on the other chair, legs akimbo, and shrugs. "More or less."

"Anything worth —" Investigating, he's going to say, but John shakes his  
head.

"Just a whole lot of keeping this face on," and his mouth tightens and his  
eyes look furious and there's barely-restrained anger in every line of his  
body until he releases it all and melts back into the chair. "It's getting  
kind of old."

Rodney nods. He feels as if he ought to say something, and he's pretty sure  
this isn't the right thing, but it's all he's got. "We'll find her," he  
says. "We don't leave people behind."

"She's not just 'people,' Rodney," John says. He leans forward, elbows on  
his knees, and one hand is rubbing and pushing at his other palm. A sign of  
a stress headache; Teyla taught them how to find that knot in the hand that  
releases the pain.

"I know," Rodney says. "She's team." She's family, is what they mean, and  
they both know it. "Here, give me that," and he reaches for John's hand.

"I'm fine," John protests, but he lets Rodney take his hand.

The back of John's hand is dusted with fine hair and his palm is warm. It's  
not hard for Rodney's thumbs to find the place to push, and he digs into  
it, not gently.

"Oh," John sighs, closing his eyes and letting Rodney work.

He looks tired and vulnerable and so beautiful that Rodney's heart catches  
in his chest. He's objectively handsome; Rodney noticed that the day they  
met, and hated him for it a little bit just on principle. But after these  
years in Atlantis Rodney can't entirely remember what it was like to look  
at him and only see the good looks.

For that matter, he knows Teyla's objectively beautiful, but that's not  
what he thinks about when he remembers her. Ronon's as good-looking a man  
as Rodney has laid eyes on, and who cares? They're so much more than that,  
now.

"Come on." Rodney pushes John toward the bed.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm kind of tired," John begins.

"You don't have to do anything," he promises. "Just — let me."

"Rodney," John protests, but he's lying back, surrendering.

* * *

He sucks John's cock gently, one hand bracing himself on the mattress and  
the other hand loosely gripping the base, thumb stroking down to his balls.  
John lets his legs fall apart, inhales hard, but he's mostly silent  
tonight.

Rodney wants to stretch this out, to make it good for so long that they'll  
both forget the day they've had, the frustration at not getting anywhere,  
the fear. The tape looping endlessly in both their minds: where Teyla might  
be, what Michael might be doing to her now.

He doesn't want John to be thinking about that. Rodney pulls back, admiring  
John's cock in his hand, and John shifts beneath him, restless; when he  
returns to his task John gasps a little, squirming up, which feels like  
victory.

Rodney is getting hard too, his trousers on the verge of becoming painful  
against his trapped erection, but he pushes that awareness to the side. His  
attention is on John's cock under his tongue, John trembling under his  
hands. The little hitch in John's breathing that means he's close already.

He slows it down, lightens his touch. No pressure, no suction, just the  
warmth of his mouth, and John groans, planting his feet and thrusting up,  
trying for the traction Rodney won't let him have.

"Jesus, Rodney, come on," and John's voice is low and gritty. It goes  
straight to Rodney's cock, which is aching now; Rodney reaches down and  
pops the button on his pants, unzipping hastily because he can't stand the  
feeling of being bound for another second.

He means to keep things slow, to stretch this out, but John makes a  
frustrated sound and pushes up and Rodney's body responds, tightening his  
grip, and that's it, John's off, arching up under his mouth and his hands.

Rodney wants to stay curled there, his head pillowed on John's belly, but  
the bed isn't big enough for that to be comfortable. And besides, he needs  
to get himself under control enough to stalk back to his quarters and jerk  
off before bed. He pulls back.

"C'mere," John says, beckoning lazily.

"You should sleep," Rodney says, but he climbs up John's body. John's kiss  
feels like he's saying "thank you," in delicious and dirty ways.

John tugs him closer and his erection makes contact with John's hip.

"Mmm," John says, kissing him more.

Rodney's brain is spinning out of control with all the things he can't say  
— I was going go home and deal with that, you're supposed to be sleeping,  
I wanted to take care of you — but his body is one hundred percent with  
the program, rubbing against John shamelessly. Sparks fly up his spine  
every time his cock catches in the soft cotton of his underwear.

And then John's hands are moving down his back, grabbing his ass and  
pulling him close, holding him snug against John's body. Rodney breaks the  
kiss and presses his face into John's neck, gasping, because suddenly he's  
way closer to coming than he realized, he didn't mean, not yet —

"That's it," John murmurs, low and satisfied, right into Rodney's ear. And  
Rodney flails for an instant as his cock jerks between them, coming all  
over himself, but John's holding him tight.

* * *

Another morning. Sunlight slanting into the mess hall. Rodney's up early  
for a change; he sees Keller sitting alone at a table with coffee and a  
bagel, and on impulse he joins her.

"Morning," she says, brightly.

He nods a little. "So. What's on your agenda for the day?"

She shrugs a little. "For once, no one's critical. I thought I might do a  
little inventory, see where we are with everything."

Neither of them mentions the obstetrics textbook sitting beside her on the  
table, unopened. She set herself on a refresher course weeks ago. Every  
moment that goes by might render that studying moot.

"And you?"

Rodney grimaces. "DHD crystals."

"Again?"

"Still." He finishes his muffin. "We got some partial addresses yesterday;  
I'll see whether I can narrow them down this morning into something we can  
work with."

"Ronon's antsy to keep looking," Keller says.

"I think John's planning to go out with Lorne again today," Rodney says  
absently. As the coffee kicks in, he's realizing how he can limit the  
database search based on the partial parameters they've managed to coax out  
of the burned crystals, and adrenaline courses through him. "If you'll — I  
think I just —"

"Yeah, sure, go," Keller says, waving her hand, and he's already up and  
heading for the door. This might be the breakthrough they need. Maybe  
today's the day they can put the pieces of their family back together.


End file.
